


Head of Steam

by tweedisgood



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Dialogue-Only, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, M/M, Steam baths, Turkish Baths, Victorian Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:55:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tweedisgood/pseuds/tweedisgood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In response to the prompt: "There's no turning back now" from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizzia/pseuds/Kizzia">Kizzia</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Head of Steam

"We could leave. Invent a reason - a train to catch; a case you've forgotten -"

"A case I have *forgotten*? Really, Watson. Calm yourself. There is no reason to leave: besides, we have already bought tickets for the whole afternoon. We are two gentlemen visiting the Turkish baths for the sake of our health. Nothing could be more innocent. _Honi soit qui mal y pense._ It is a dangerous error to attribute evil thoughts to others merely because one's own mind is corrupt."

"Damn it Holmes, you were the one to suggest that my...education might be broadened by a tour of this establishment. You told me it was out of the ordinary run of bath houses: particularly *enlightened*, especially *discreet*. Even I could not fail to understand that what you meant was that it extends a welcome to practising sexual deviants and shields illegal liaisons from prying eyes."

"Tsk, tsk. My dear Watson, Whatever gave you that idea?"

"You were sodomising me at the time!"

"Hmm, so I was. I admit that does led some credence to your theory. Then we will treat it as a working hypothesis. Observe the geography of the hot rooms. Instead of large spaces each leading from one to another, they cluster as cells in a beehive, each cell with its own door. The attendants - all of them Arabian youths of full age but the freshest beauty - take care to knock and wait before entering with a towel or a glass of sherbet."

"Or a bubble pipe."

"The finest hashish this side of the Bosphorus. The cooling room is upstairs, well away from the furnaces, and contains a specimen of the tiler's art unique in size and scope, incorporating oriental abstract forms in the border and a classical subject in the central panel."

"I suppose it represents a Dionysian revel."

"Hyacinth and Apollo. It is possible to deduce the exact angle at which the fatal discus must have been thrown so as to strike the unfortunate youth on the temple."

"Holmes, people are staring at us. You will be recognised if you talk like that."

"My dear Watson - my dear John, they are staring at *you*. One of your more charming attributes is that when you look in the mirror of a morning, you see but you do not observe. You are a very handsome man. Clad only in a parti-coloured towel, you are handsomer still. And it would be most surprising if I were not recognised. That plump and balding gentleman just passing by the potted palm is the Superintendent of the City of London Police, those great rivals to Lestrade and company. I helped him out in the matter of the Saffron Hill receivers' ring not two months past."

"A *policeman*?"

"An invert. And a policeman. A rather good one, well-liked by his men and able to follow a train of deductive reasoning without too much prompting. We have mutual interests. "

"Don't tell me he believes you would expose him if he ever tried to do the same to you?"

"Blackmail? It must always be about crime for you, a distressing tendency which you would do well to curb. That tedious fellow Doyle is pressing you for more sensational serialisations, I suppose?"

"Don't tease me, Holmes. You are very bad at it."

"On the contrary. I am very, very good at it. Presently we shall seclude ourselves in one of the hot rooms and I will practise teasing you a little more. Meanwhile, watch and learn."

"You are not going to suggest we spy through keyholes?"

"There is jumping to conclusions, Watson, and then there is being shot out of a circus cannon toward conclusions. What you are here to learn is the sumptuous variety of pleasure two men can share who are inclined to each other and have shed their preconceptions along with their clothing. And you will do it without needing to see a single inch more of bare skin than any of the gentlemen here have on display whilst walking the corridors. Take, for example, the Post Office clerk coming towards us. From the way his towel is draped, he is looking to be fellated at the same time as he gives the same service. One fold of the cloth is hanging free at precisely sixty nine degrees from the vertical. A carefully arranged dressing gown sleeve could convey the same desire.”

“Good Lord. How do you know he is a Post Office clerk?”

“Another time, perhaps. Superintendent Phillips, by contrast, enjoys taking the submissive role when he and his partner are face to face on a staircase. Incidentally, Mrs Hudson is away next Tuesday in Brighton.”

“What has Mrs… Ah.”

“You begin to catch on. Capital. Rituals involving the licking of food items from private parts are easily catered for here, where the residue of, say, honey, can be sweated or washed off at once.”

“Or if a private household possesses the latest in geyser baths.”

“Quite so. I can tell the precise speed and depth of thrust offered as active partner by the roll of a walking man’s hips. If he picks up his pace only when he has gone by, then relaxes it again, I might expect a slow start, build to a crescendo, luxuriate in sensation for a few shallow dips of the wick then a good, hard, rousing finish rounded off with a low groan.”

“Amazing. So much from so little. As it were.”

“Excuse me, I must just get by. Pawky humour again, Watson. Stow that, if you please. I have heard no complaints on that score.”

“Nor shall you, I can assure you. Wait for me. Thank you. Um, it’s getting rather hot in here, I must say.”

“The boiler must be stoked regularly. Heartily. Two or three times a week at least.”

“Two or three…?”

“At least. Unless it is in use for other purposes. Combustion is a chemical process; there might be experiments. Or poisonings. Theft of coals. Mysteries.”

“What of the mystery of human affection?”

“No mystery. It is the day two souls first meet and see in each other everything that was wanting before; it is the night two bodies first join and find in each other pleasure and peace. Elementary.”

“Yes, elementary indeed, my dear Holmes. Can they also find pleasure and peace in the daytime?”

“All the more light to see your face when I breach you, to watch you handle yourself shamelessly, your luscious mouth hanging open and blue eyes screwed tight shut; to worship your glorious prick with my hands and my tongue; to ride you until I am spent, lathered and victorious; to sleep in your arms only to wake and want to begin again at once. To not be tired, to never be tired of having you as long as I live.”

“Holmes…did you say one of the hot rooms might be free?” 

END


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